June Mummery warned Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal could allow the EU a chance to let the Dutch start pulse fishing in UK waters. Electric pulse fishing involved pulling a net filled with electrodes across the sea to produce an electric field in the water, shocking the fish. But critics say it is highly damaging to the seabed. The Brexit Party MEP raised concerns on the environmental impacts of this type of fishing, and claimed Britain will have “no say” in whether it is brought back as the nation will be “stuck into the CFP” (Common Fisheries Policy).

Ms Mummery told Express.co.uk: “It is used as a science so that the EU allow the Dutch to do this science for 10 years, but no one’s looked at it. So all of a sudden, of the east coast of England, we’ve got no fish.

“We all wondered where the soles had gone, because they’ve been obliterated. So I’ve lobbied with fishermen and Bloom, an NGO which have been very, very good, and we reached a gentleman’s agreement that they would stop, I think they’re back to 12 boats.

“But they’re now trying to overturn that in the EU with the ECJ, so that’s what they’re about to do.

“But what you have to think is, if Boris puts Theresa May’s deal through, we’re going to have no say on that.

“For between three to four years we’re stuck in the EU, but we’ve got no voice.

“So in some ways Theresa May’s deal, it’s better for us to be there and keeping an eye on things, but we can’t fight it.

“So if we leave on Theresa May’s deal, we’re still stuck into the CFP and they can overturn this, we’ve got no say on it whatsoever.”

The Brexit Party MEP for the East of England posted a video to her Twitter page earlier in September, in which John Nichols, chairman of Thanet Fisherman’s Association, discussed how pulse fishing impacts the environment.

He said: “It has serious damaging effects on the ecosystem. We as fishermen here in Ramsgate believe it sterilises the ground as it goes along. We believe that it kills all the small fish, the very, very small fish.

“It breaks the backbones of the small sole and small cod, anything that lives on the seabed, and it kills them.

“It is an extremely effective method of catching fish, it saves a lot of money on the fuel, they’re probably burning a third of the fuel they were burning in the past.

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“They’re towing a lot lighter gear. The damage that the actual pulse fishing does is a lot more extensive, but it’s out of sight, out of mind.

“You can see the fuel going into a boat, and you can appreciate that it’s a lot less fuel going in, but what it’s doing to the environment and the seabed because it’s on the seabed and you can’t see what’s happening, that’s the damaging factor.”

Former fisherman Martin Jackson added: “Pulse fishing is electric pulse beaming where a charge is fired down onto the seabed, fixed to a trawl and this tasers fish. It stuns them and they drop back into the net.

“DEFRA commissioned a survey by CEFAS to find out what was happening on the seabed.

“And as far as we know, the results of the survey were so damning, DEFRA has not released the results.”

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